Today official titles are abundant and hardly represent the ideal of clarity. But, believe it or not, it has been getting better over the past few centuries. Progress was here, and it is easy to see it when one examines how official structure looked a few hundred years ago…lets say around 163x.

First of all, there were several types of officials, which can be broadly divided into:

government officials – responsible for country’s functions, like Great Crown Chancellor;

court officials – responsible for royal court functions, like Master of the Royal Hunt;

Today we would not consider court official an important person. Master of Royal Hunt, it sounds almost ridiculous, does it?

Wrong! In fact, in 163x he took care not simply of royal hunts but he was in charge of country’s forests and other ‘wild’ areas and their protection from poachers. So don’t be mislead by the tiles – while court officials often started doing just what their name suggested (most of those titles appeared around X-XII century, and the first written text with their names dates back to XII century to the chronicles of Gal Anonym), by XVII century they very often had other, more important duties.

Of course, there are exceptions to the rule. While some titles gained power (good example being marshal, who evolved from fairly unimportant person to one of the most powerful dignitaries) other lost their importance – like the title of the judge.

There are other problems with jumping to the conclusions. Sometimes, the name of one dignitary suggests that he was a subordinate of another. Neither King’s Cup-Bearer (czesnik) was senior to Master Cup-Bearer (podczaszy), nor was it the other way around.

Finally, Rzeczpospolita was composed of several very different provinces, and the local official titles were rarely the same – often, some important dignitary in one province had no corresponding partner in another.

The above division into 2 groups was very broad. A more detailed one is here:

Senat-related officials (lists B-F)

Central not senat-related officials (list G)

Court officials (list G)

Military officials (list H)

District officials (list I)

Borough and judicial officials (list J)

City and village officials (list K)

Guild and union officials

As a side note, Polish parliament consisted of two chambers – higher, Senat, where most important dignitaries were seated (and which will be described below), and lower, Sejm, with delegates of lesser nobles from Sejmik’s (local parliaments).

On who could be an official

From XV to XVIII century only nobles could became an official. But not every noble could be one – there were requirements of age of 23 years or greater and of having substantial personal wealth.

With varying degrees of success, the kings and more enlighten nobles tried to prevent the concentration of power in the hands of one or few persons, therefore there was a trend to make many titles.

On curiosities of Polish officials

Once a noble was chosen to be an official, he had a job for a lifetime. He could not be recalled unless he was convicted of high treason. If he agreed, he could be moved to an another, usually higher place in the hierarchy.

There were certain times various kings or nobles wanted to make the titles hereditary, but it has never become a reality. Rarely, the title passed from father to the son, but it was often considered a king’s abuse of power by the rest of the nobles.

The most problematic was certainly the trading in offices. From the ‘koszyce privilege of 1374 (przywilej koszycki)’, the king had the right to chose which person would become and official. This meant that selling the titles become an important source of income for the king. The title of Crown ęłęóDeputy Chancellor went in 1638 for 60000 Hungarian ducats.

As one can imagine, the stories connected with this practice would make more then one good movie. Albrecht Radziwill describes in his diaries one such event: the election of District Judge of Luck (sedzia zemski luzycki) in 1643. One of the candidates brought with him a large group of well-armed nobles, the other a regiment of soldiers. Only king’s mediation prevented the bloodshed.

In Poland, the titles had an additional function – they replaced medals, which were deemed unfair by nobles (since all nobles considered themselves equal…of course there always were more equal among equals, but it is another story). Therefore there was a clear division between ‘officials’ nobles and normal nobles.

It went so far that even grandchildren of an official had the right to the title (which did not carry any power, as it was not hereditary, of course – but the prestige remained).

On Senat-related officials

Senat of I Rzeczpospolita consisted of bishops, voivodes, castellans and ministers.

The list of dignitaries allowed to participate in the Senat was finalized in 1569.

The most important of all officials was the Primate, Archbishop of Gniezno. Since 1572, the first time Poland had no king, he was the interrex – acted as the head of the state until new king was elected. He represented the country and prepared elections for the new king. In addition he had the power to call for new Senat session, if he deemed it important, even if king was not present. He also could invoke the ‘de non praestanda obedientia’ article, which gave the country a right to legally overthrow the king. From among the other senators, he chose his own court marshal (often one of the castellans). That person usually acted as a messenger from the archbishop during senat missing, by giving signs (moving the cross) he conveyed how he wishes his allies to vote. His two deputies were bishops of Wroclaw and Poznan.

Among the secular district officials, the first one was the Castellan of Cracow.

Power of voivodes was diminishing since the title was introduced around XII century. In 163x they were the most important of district officials. They were the highest representatives of their voivodship (province) to the Senat. They were the leaders of local parliaments (voivodship’s seimik – sejmiki wojewodzkie). They were in charge of assembling local military forces in case of ‘common mobilistation’ (a specific mobilistation of all nobles in times of war). They chose a deputy voivode, who was responsible for setting local prices and measures. Voivodes were chosen by king, with the exceptions of voivodes of Polock and Vilnus who were elected locally (but still had to be approved by the king).

With the exception of the Castellan of Cracow, the other castellans were often considered to be subordinates of voivoides. They were in charge of a part of the voivodship (called castellanies till XV century, and from that time divided into provinces for Greater Castellans and powiat’s for Minor Castellans).

From 1565 the rule of ‘incopatibila’ has forbidden the voivodes and castellans to hold a second title of a minister, other voivode or a starost, with the exception of hetman.

Ministers were what we would call today the central government officials. They consited of 10 officials (5 for Poland, 5 for Lithuania). Hetmans were also considered ‘ministers’ but had no right to be sited in the Senat.

Court Marshals were considered the subordinates of Great Marshals. Lithuanian ministers, while had the same powers as Crown ones, were considered in hierarchy to be behind them.

Marshals duties consisted of providing security to the king and keeping order where he was present. They had 2 regiments of infantry, a regiment of militia and a special court (with a marshal’s judge, marshal’s writer and assessors.) Those courts dealt sentences on the spot, and there was no appeal. For the crimes like drawing a weapon near the king the penalty was death. Marshal’s court had the jurisdiction over all crimes committed on the court and by the courtiers.

When king traveled, marshals were the supervisors of local voivodes. They decided on who to admit for the royal audience. They were the masters and organizers of royal and court ceremonies (including weddings, funerals and such). They were the masters of court, kept track of lesser courtiers and set their pensions (if applicable).

Each marshal had a marshal’s staff, which he received from the chancellor. In exchange, all chancellor nominations were heralded by marshals. If no marshal was present, their functions were carried out by a Great Treasurer or secular Great Chancellor.

On formal occasions and in travel, marshal preceded the king, carrying his staff, where appropriate.

Close after the marshals in the hierarchy were the chancellors.

From 1507, the title of Great Crown Chancellor was rotated between secular and ecclesiastic nobles.

Chancellor and his Deputy Chancellor (but not a subordinate!) were responsible for the work of two chancelleries, Greater and Minor one. They were supposed to be in constant contact and develop common policies. Among their responsibilities were the foreign and internal affairs. They had also judiciary powers, leading so called ‘assessors’ courts’, that were the highest appeal courts for people subjected to crowns laws (i.e. not subjected to ecclesiastic or magnates courts).

Chancellor often gave speeches representing the royal will. The symbol of their office was the seal, which was used to seal all documents passing through his office. He also sealed documents signed by the monarch and could refuse to seal a document he considered illegal or damaging to the country (such documents had no power without his seal). When the king died, the seal was destroyed during funeral and new one given to him by the succeeding king.

Therefore they were considered the guardians of the king and country, making sure the kings folly would not endanger the country by forcing it into an unnecessary war (and in fact, they prevented many wars in 163x, including the war with Turkey Wladyslaw wanted to wage after he was elected in 1632).

The chancellor powers combined with the fact that wars required funds, funds were given by the Senat, and nobles were usually unwilling to increase taxes and contributions, meant that Poland very rarely declared wars on its own. Usually it was attacked by its neighbors, and while it repelled all attacks till the end of XVIII centurty, it almost never capitalized on any of its victories. The army was undermanned and under equipped (since usually any suggestion of bigger military budget when enemy was not on the doorstep was considered warmongering) and lands of Rzeczpospolita were ravaged by new invasions, crippling its economy.

Back to the chancellors. They received no official wage, but instead a varying provisions or gifts from thankful clients of Chancellery. The ramifications in the area of corruption does not need to be discussed, I think :/

The Chancelleries were staffed with regent (the boss), secretaries, writers, clerks and metricants. Regent divided the work between the clerks. 2 secretaries (one responsible for private correspondence, second for official) presented the ready letters to the king for his signature. Writers designed the letters, clerks readied the final draft. No copies were made, but instead they were written into the books called Metrics, who were taken care by metricans (2 in Poland, 2 in Lithuania). Metrican of Great Chancellor was called Great Metrican, the one serving Deputy Chancellor was a Minor Metrican.

The staff of Chancellery had no wage, just like the Chancellors, but in the middle of eachreception room was the box into which all clients were supposed to deposit a varying amount of money, and nobody who planned on coming back could afford to be mean.

Last among the ministers were the Great Treasurers. They kept account of country’s finances, cash flow, State Treasury and controlled the making of coins. Since, like chancellors, they had no wages, corruption ran rampant and a sizable potion of state finances was lost in their pockets. If a Treasurer moved to another post, he had to presents accounts of his expenses, and if he died, his family was asked for them. A telling story is that of Boguslaw Leszczynski, who being a Great Treasurer (from 1650 to 1658) received an offer to become a Chancellor (which he accepted in 1658). He bribed all the members of parliament to grant him ‘absolutory’, and when one of them later opposed him, he asked, curious: “Who is the son of…that I have not paid off?’

Great Treasurers supervised the lesser officials like mnicerz (who was in charge of coin production), dispensators, curators, tax collectors, superintendents, duty officers and sub-tax collectors. It is useful to remember that in those times, goods – and people – were taxed not only at borders, but at bridges, crossroads and city gates.

Central not Senat-related officials

As name suggests, non senat-related officials didn’t have the right to vote in Senat.

The most important were the Great Secretaries (Crown and Lithuanian). Only an ecclesiastic person could be a great secretary. They were considered to be more important then all district and court officials, with the sole exception of court marshal. They could act as chancellors where no chancellor was present. They dealt with secret letters, in senat they read kings letters and or sejm’s declarations. They often acted as assessors and were called ‘born assessors’.

Next were 4 Referendaries, 2 Secular and 2 Ecclesiastic, one of each was Crown’s, second Lithuanian.

They rarely left the royal court, and their duties comprised of listening to petitions and complains which they referred (hence their name) to the king. They acted also as judges in cases involving peasants from kings lands, and often acted as assessors in other courts.

Close to the office of Referandaries was the Instigator, or what we would call today – Chief National Prosecutor. One for Crown, one for Lithuania, their duty was to uncover and deal with crimes against the king and the country, and had the power to accuse all dignitaries safe the king.

Then came the Great Writers – 1 for Crown, 3 for Lithuania. Their duty was to clarify the royal decrees and send the letters to those dignitaries who must hear about them. They often acted as ambassadors and assessors.

Crown Keeper was the person responsible for safeguarding the Royal Treasury, were royal insignias were kept. Keys to the treasury were kept by Great Treasurer and 6 voivodes, and without all of them, it could not be opened. Traditionally, Crown Keepers where chosen among the priests of Cracow’s Cathedral.

From 1647, the ministers were joined by Great Postmaster, supervisor of the Royal Post, founded in 1547.

As mentioned earlier, the rule was that Polish officials had life long cadences. There were several notable exceptions from that rule.

The most important among them was the Senat Marshal, who chaired the Senat meetings. He could not decide the topic of the meeting, but could suggest it. Traditionally, the Senat Marshal title was rotated among the Senators from 2 provinces of Rzeczpospolita (Wielkopolska and Malopolska) and Lithuania.

Senat Marshal chose the Senat Secretary, who was in charge of keeping records of Senat meetings.

The highest Court for nobles was called The Tribunal, and was headed by Tribunal President and Marshal. Marshal was chosen from and by the judges themselves, while President dealt with matters involving ecclesiastics (and was a high-ranking priest himself).

The second Court was called Crown Treasury court. Wages for all judges were decided on Sejm’s meetings.

Mines were supervised by ‘zupnik’. Other less important dignitaries, nominated by king or Sejm to deal with specific short term problems were called commissars, lustrates, revisers, delegates, legates and deputies.

Court officials

Court officials are the most difficult to describe. Some held responsibilities important both the court and country, functions of others kept evolving during centuries. In time (usually with end of XVII century), the titles become only honorary and the king had to create another bunch of officials to deal with those responsibilities.

Court officials can be divided into those who dealt with king service and those who ensured the court and run smoothly (in XVI century, it consisted of approximately 1000-1500 people). Since the first group was not subjected to the rule of ‘incompabilitias’, they often held another title, usually that of a smaller district officials like ‘starosta’.

Among those who dealt with king’s service, the most important one was the Master of the Kitchen, who supervised the kitchen staff and equipment as well as making of foods. During the feasts, he announced the dishes names.

Second was the Esquire Carver chose and started setting the table. During the feast, he directed the setting of dishes. He was aided by Lord High Steward during the feasts.

Master Food-Cutter finished setting the table (with table utensils and plates), and during the feast cut all dishes that require the usage of knife. After cutting them, he tasted them (in XVII century it was just a tradition, from the days that they were used to detect poison).

Drinks were dealt with by Master Cup-Bearer and King’s Cup-Bearer. The first one tasted drinks, poured and ordered them, the second one served them to the king after receiving them from the former one.

For those that beared with me so far, here is a description of a banquet during king Zygmunt III reign in 1596, described by the secretary of papal nuncio (ambassador), Giorgio Paolo Mucante: “Each dish was first given, with a bow, by Master of the Kitchen to the Master Food-Cutter, who passed it to the Esquire Carver. He dipped a prepared piece of bread into the dish, touched it with his tongue and then threw it away into a nearby silver bin. It took quite a while before the king and the cardinal started eating, since they had to bear all the ceremonies. The Master Food-Cutter was bowing so often that I truly think that during that feast he bowed at least 3000 times”

The second group of the dignitaries was lead by Court Marshall (described above). Then there was:

Chamberlain – in charge if kings court and economy on crown grounds

Standard-keeper – carrying king’s or country’s banner

Sword-bearer – carrying sword before the king

Master of the Horse – in charge of kings stables and horse breeding grounds

Master of the Royal Hunt – organized hunts, guarded royal forests from poachers

Court Treasurer managed the finances of the king, kept account of his personal treasure and supervised the courts treasures

and a lot of other dignitaries, less and less important, dealing with things like food supplies, transport, etc.

Queen had her separate court, but it was staffed with women and its influence over the country was much smaller.

Military officials

Hetmans were the highest military officials. As most of the positions in I Rzeczpospolita, hetman was a job for life and couldn’t be removed even if he was a poor commander. Until beginning of XVIII century, they were not paid for their job.

Hetmans were very independent; they could keep their own foreign contacts with Ottoman Empire, Russia and Tatars. They distributed the military budgets as they felt like and as the highest commanders and administrators, hetman made administrative and juridical law concerning military. From 1590 those had the same power as Sejm’s decisions.

Hetmans symbol was a mace, which was added to his coat of arms (see coats of arms of hetmans and several other dignitaries here: http://www.bezuprzedzen.pl/urzedy/urzedygaleria.html).

There were 2 types of hetmans (besides the division into Crown and Lithuanian) – Great and Field. Field were subordinates of Great ones, and were sometimes called Border Hetmans, since they evolved from commanders of permanent garrisons on Polish south-eastern borders (which was a great school of combat, since it was a land almost constantly attacked by Ottomans and Tatars).

Kozak’s were commanded by a commissar, chosen by the hetmans for the period of 2 years. Below hetmans were regimentars, the commanders of common mobilization in voivodships.

Hetmans and regimentars were accompanied by a Staff composed of officers named: Great Guardians, Field Guardians, Field Writers, Great Camp Leader and Field Camp Leaders. Those officers were paid for their work (Lithuanian Field Guardian, Field Writer and Camp Leader received 15000 polish zloty’s per year. Crown Field Writer received 30000 per year).

Great Guardian supervised the scout forces during movement and camping and commanded the front guard (however, if both hetmans were present, field one acted as Great Guardian).

Field Guardians were found only on the eastern borders.

Field Writers kept accounts of people, equipment and fortifications. He was in charge of paying soldiers wages.

Camp Leaders were responsible for choosing the current camping place for the armies, building the camps, logistics and security inside the camps.

Several new military titles were created after the 1635:

1637 – General of Artillery (responsible for artillery forces, their logistics and such)

1670s – General of Logistics, General of Medics, General of Finances

General of Inspections controlled the combat readiness of troops, however it is unclear when they were created (besides the phrase ‘in XVII century’).

District officials

Constitution (well, not real constitution as we would call it today, but a historical name hasn’t changed) form 1611 (amended in 1633 and 1635) describes many officials. But bear in mind that exceptions to the rule WERE the rule. Sejm rules were treated just as suggestions, and in voivodship of Belsk, for example, there were only 4 dignitaries (instead of total 15), most north voivodships had about 5, while in Wolyn and Braclaw the hierarchical order was almost reversed.

District officials were nominated by the king with a few exceptions (local parliaments (sejmiki) chose Chamberlains, District judges, District judge deputies, District Writers and on Lithuania also Standard Nearers and District marshals).

Chamberlains except for a name had nothing in common with Court officials of the same name. They led a court (Chamberlain Court) which had jurisdiction over territorial disputes.

District judge headed the District Court, which had jurisdiction over civil and some penal law regarding local nobility.

City starost was in charge of king’s own territories. They were supposed to keep them in good economical and military shape. While in time those administrative duties got smaller (since kings gave away more and more land), city starost kept being leaders of City’s Courts (sady grodzkie), which dealt with most of the penal law and had jurisdiction over all local and traveling nobility. They dealt with most severe cases (killings, rapes, robberies) and were quite harsh (robbery on the road was punishable by death), which made Poland a relatively safer country then its neighbors (unless one just happened to be in Poland while one or more neighbors invaded it). They also held the ‘law of sword’, which meant that they acted as enforcers for verdicts of all other courts.

Non-city starosts did not had the juridical powers.

Standard bearers carried the local banner during Royal Ceremonies and in wars, when local troops were present in the army.

During war, Lords of Armies kept order and security on their local territories.

Ciwuns responsibilities on Lithuania were similar to non-city starosts.

District marshals presided over local parliaments (on Crown lands, district marshals were chosen only for a duration on the parliament session, so they were much less powerful then Lithuanian ones chosen for life).

Borough and judicial officials

The most important official was the starost, described above. He was supported by deputy borough starost (podstarosci grodowy), burgraby (burgrabia), notary (notariusz) and writer (pisarz).

Deputy borough starost helped district starost and acted in his name with all his powers during his absence.

In the eastern territories from 1667, bordering with Russia, there was an office of Border Judge, who cooperated with Russian judges in cases involving parties from 2 countries. His rulings were final.

Judges were often chosen by locals and had little formal training, therefore the quality of the courts varied from judge to judge and corruption levels were high.

Advocates, on the other hand, were required to have professional training.

Sometimes court included an assessor, who helped the judge and collected the money (fines and payments).

Prosecutors were extremely rare. Instigators kept order and security on court grounds, and messenger (wozny) was responsible for delivering official letters from court (not the safest job around, considering some nobles attitudes).

City and village officials

Those officials were very stable, having evolved around XIII century and lasting almost unchanged till the end of 1st Rzeczpospolita. Administration system came from Germany along with the ‘magdeburgian law’.

Each city (no exceptions) had a Council and Bench, where Council was the administrative branch and Bench was the judicial branch. New Council was chosen by the old one run out. It was responsible for administration, law, privileges, security, finances, guild control and such. Council chose the Mayor and his members decision was final – even starost or voivode could only listen to the mayor’s pledge and could not refuse to give him his seal. Council met daily in bigger cities, less often in smaller ones.

Mayor was the leader of the Council and controlled the executive branch. He was responsible for conciliation, defense of poor, and keeping order by fighting against alcohol abuse and hazard games.

Second to the Mayor was Council Writer, who run the City’s Chancellery.

City’s syndic (syndyk miejski) was responsible for colleting taxes in the city and supervised the tax collectors.

Security and order in the city was the responsibility of hutman. He also supervised the city’s prison and keyman (who locked/opened the city’s gates at dawn/dusk).

Lonar acted as the city’s treasurer, keeping eye on its finances. He supervised the weighters, who controlled the weights on marketplace in order to ensure fare trade.

Big cities also had scores of other less common officials, like Pipemasters, responsible for pipes and wells, Fireman Chiefs, City’s Translators who helped the foreigners and looked for spies and many more.

Bench was chaired by a wojt. He and the Bench members were chosen by the Council for a year’s term from lesser city officials (writers, clerks, etc.).

City’s Chef Executioner in Poland was responsible not only for executing criminals sentenced by the Bench but often for executions of criminals sentenced by all other non-military courts in Poland. They were well paid, sometimes acted as doctors, but were also often considered outcasts by the society and lived outside city’s walls.

Village leader was called ‘soltys’ and was an administrative, executive and judicial chief for the village, responsible only to the village owner.

Guild and union officials

Guild were not very common in Poland, and existed solely in cities. There were 2 types: Religious/Cultural ones and Business ones (guilds).

Guild leaders were usually chosen by guild members. Few guilds like honey-makers or miners had their own courts.

The end

That sums most of the officials that could be met in Poland in 163x. Remember that the lower one looked at the hierarchy, the more exceptions there were. The list below will state who held the given position in 163x, when such information was available.

I hope that this work will be of some assistance to anyone interested in Poland of 163x.

Note: in most cases, I translated the Polish title into English, but left the original title in the ()

Note: where possible, I added the name of the person holding the office in 1632-1634 and dates of when they held it

Note: I left out Polish alphabet letters in the text below, since I don’t think most of u have the right coding pages installed on your comp. If u want me to give the name in Polish alphabet, let me know.

Note: in Polish language, titles are rarely written with capital letters.

LIST A Royal family

King #1: Zygmunt III Waza (till 3-.IV.1632)

King #2: Wladyslaw IV (13.XI.1632+), see also Crown Prince #1

Crown prince #1: Wladyslaw (till 13.XI.1632)

Crown prince #2: Jan Kazimierz

Crown prince #3: Jan Albert

Crown prince #4: Karol Ferdynand. see also bishop of Wroclaw

Crown prince #5: Aleksander Karol

Crown princess: Anna Katarzyna Konstancj

LIST B Archbishops and Bishops

Note: the below lists are organized in the order of importance (based on the sitting order in Senat)

Note: in most of the cases, the name of voivodship is made from the major town, and in English translation is the same (i.e. Voivode of Cracow ruled over the province of Cracow from the city of Cracow)

Note: in few of the below titles, instead of the city a province is mentioned, I annotated those titles with *. I have ATM no idea what was the main city in that area t that time.

Note: I have never heard of about half of the below cities/regions, and Polish language is full of irregularities in such names, so when I made a city name out of the province one, I might have erred. I marked those I was unsure of with ^ and I recommend u stick with Polish title

Note: Most of the cities below are in Polish language. Exceptions: Cracow is English name for Krakow, Kiev is English name for Kijow. Vilnus is English name for Wilno. I think u r more familiar with English versions

Notes: Most of the cities below can be found on a good quality map of Poland and our eastern neighbors (Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, etc.). A good bet is they didn’t move much since XVII century, cites are not very mobile 🙂